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MiM trojan
Wednesday, July 7, 1982 University of Southern California Volume XCI, Number 12
Photo by Dan Canales
NEW KIDS IN TOWN - Orientation is bringing some new faces to campus for a few days over the next months. New Trojans and their parents spend two days getting acquainted with university life For more photos and answers to the eternal question. “Why USC?" see page 2.
JOINS MEDICAL FACULTY
Chaplain appointed
Alvin S. Rudisill, university chaplain, has been named to the faculty of the School of Medicine as a lecturer on biomedical ethics.
Rudisill, who will retain his post as an associate professor of historical theology in the School of Religion, was appointed as associate professor of medicine in the department of pediatrics.
Trained as a clergyman and church historian, Rudisill has extensive experience in the fields of health care and bioethics, where he has gained a reputation as an expert in the ethics of human experimentation.
For the past 10 years, he has served on USC’s health sciences research committee, the institutional review board for Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center and the schools of medicine, pharmacy and dentistry. He chairs the board’s ethics subcommittee.
Last spring, Rudisill was appointed to the State of Califomnia Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects, which regulates research on humans in all state institutions and agencies.
He is a member of the bioethics steering committee of the Division for Mission in North America of the Lutheran Church of America, a health consultant to the Lutheran Church of America, a health consultant to the Vesper Society of San Leandro, and a member of the board of directors at Vesper Memorial Hospital of San Leandro, where he chairs the board's medical care committee.
Rudisill has been university chaplain since 1969.
RESEARCHER SAYS ADJUSTMENT ALSO STRESSFUL FOR WIVES
Alcoholism programs neglect spouses, study claims
Wives of recovering alcoholics face adjustment periods that are nearly as stressful as those for their husbands, but they are the “forgotten patients” in rehabilitation programs, a university study finds.
Charles Underwood, Ph.D., interviewed 58 wives of recovering alcoholics for his doctoral dissertation and found that their problems were far from over after their husbands stopped drinking.
“The wives continued to experience a high level of anxiety,” Underwood reports in his dissertation, titled Wives of Recovering Alcoholics: Their Personal Concerns During Their Husbands' First 18 Months of Sobriety. “Only the focus of their concerns was changed,” he says.
Yet the wives said few of their concerns were recognized or addressed by counselors and other professionals working in alcoholism rehabilitation programs. They said such programs focus almost exclusively on the alcoholic.
More than half of the wives interviewed had been married for 16 years or longer, and most of them had children at home.
“About 60 percent of the husbands had been habitual, daily drinkers,” Underwood reports. “The other 40 percent were episodic alcoholics. Typically, they would abstain during the week and drink only
on weekends. Most had attempted sobriety several times.”
Underwood asked the women to describe their anxieties, what their concerns had been before and after their husbands had stopped drinking.
Ranking their presobriety concerns in descending order, the wives cited the drinking issue, conflict in the marriage, the children’s welfare, their sexual relationship, the husband’s health and their own self-adequacy.
Underwood reports, “All of the wives said they experienced some relief when their husbands stopped drinking, but by no means did they feel their problems were over.”
Ranking their concerns of the early post-sobriety period, the wives cited, again in descending order, conflict in the marriage, their sexual relationship, their own self-adequacy, the children’s welfare, the drinking issue (fear of relapse), and the husband’s health.
Based on the study data, Underwood hypothesizes that the wives of recovering alcoholics go through various stages of adjustment during the post-sobriety period. After an initial feeling of mild relief mixed with continued anxiety, they enter a stage of role adjustment.
“For many women, one of the most difficult adjustments is to relinquish the responsibil-
ities they had assumed when their husbands became neglectful,” Underwood says. “ A woman who took over management of the family finances after her husband no longer paid the bills on time, for example, is likely to balk at handing back that responsibility when her husband is sober.”
Underwood offers some explanations. First, during the early post-sobriety period, the wife tends to worry that her husband will relapse. Or second, she may simply be reluctant to readjust to her spouse’s
system of management, having developed her own way of doing things.
The role adjustments these women go through may be similar to the adjustments that faced wives of servicement returning from World War II, says Maurice Hamovitch, a professor of the School of Social Work and chairman of the committee that reviewed Underwood’s dissertation.
When Hamovitch interviewed spouses of servicemen several years ago, he found
that to cope with the pain of separation many of those women had assumed their husbands would never return.
Similarly, he hypothesizes that the wives of alcoholics many assume that their spouses will never again be secure enough to handle household and family responsibilities. Then, when the husbands try to reassert themselves, the wives must go through a period of psychological adjustment.
(Continued on page 4)
Single mothers said more like^ than men to rely upon others
Letters welcome
The Summer Trojan welcomes letters and commentaries for publication.
Material submitted must include the writer’s name, year in school (or postion held at the university), major, and a telephone number at which the writer may be reached during the day.
All letters and commentaries must be typed and doublespaced.
Submit letters and commentaries to STU 421.
Among single parents coping with the demands of raising children alone, mothers are more likely than fathers to rely on a “support system” of family and friends, a university researcher reports.
“Women who are single parents tend to ask for — and receive — financial and moral support from family members and friends,” says Dr. Helen Mendes, an associate professor of social work and a pioneer in research on single-parent families.
Men who head single-parent families, on the other hand, tend to think they’re supposed to be strong and independent, so they’re more reluctant to ask for help, she says.
“Men who are less caught up in the ‘macho’ image are able to ask for help when it’s needed, but men over 40 are often bound up with the feeling of ‘I’ll do it myself.’ It’s understandable, but it’s sad,” says Mendes, who was a single parent herself for eight years.
Single-parent families are increasing, the recently tabulated figures from the 1980 census show. Today, one American child in five lives with only one parent. Some 12.7 million children live in single-parent homes.
Mendes, who has 17 years’ experience as a private-practice social worker and often counsels single-parent families, recently conducted a study of 45 single parents. Here are some of her findings:
Men and women differ in the way they maintain family ties after a divorce. Women tend to maintain relationships with their in-laws and encour-
age their children to do the same. Men usually allow7 their children to continue relationships with maternal grandparents, but they, themselves, rarely keep close ties with their in-laws.
Single-parent mothers and fathers view the child’s role differently. Mothers tend to placc great value in the child’s emotional support, while fathers tend to see the sharing of household tasks as the child’s primary way of demonstrating support.
Single-parent fathers tend to demand and value independence in their children. Their female counterparts tend to “baby their offspring, perhaps because they feel guilty about the father’s absence and don’t want to demand too much.
Mendes thinks many of these parenting differences are sex-role related. The attitudes and practices of single-parent mothers and fathers will change, she says, as sex-role stereotyping becomes less common and as one-parent families headed by women cease to be the norm.
Curently, 19 percent of all families with children under age 18 are headed by single parents. Few of these families are headed by men, but such families are on the rise.
“Increasing numbers of men are becoming single parents — either by adoption or by gaining custody after a divorce,” Mendes explains. “We’re moving away from sexual stereotypes. Fewer women are demanding custody of their children, while more and more men are fighting for custody.”
(Continued on page 4)

MiM trojan
Wednesday, July 7, 1982 University of Southern California Volume XCI, Number 12
Photo by Dan Canales
NEW KIDS IN TOWN - Orientation is bringing some new faces to campus for a few days over the next months. New Trojans and their parents spend two days getting acquainted with university life For more photos and answers to the eternal question. “Why USC?" see page 2.
JOINS MEDICAL FACULTY
Chaplain appointed
Alvin S. Rudisill, university chaplain, has been named to the faculty of the School of Medicine as a lecturer on biomedical ethics.
Rudisill, who will retain his post as an associate professor of historical theology in the School of Religion, was appointed as associate professor of medicine in the department of pediatrics.
Trained as a clergyman and church historian, Rudisill has extensive experience in the fields of health care and bioethics, where he has gained a reputation as an expert in the ethics of human experimentation.
For the past 10 years, he has served on USC’s health sciences research committee, the institutional review board for Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center and the schools of medicine, pharmacy and dentistry. He chairs the board’s ethics subcommittee.
Last spring, Rudisill was appointed to the State of Califomnia Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects, which regulates research on humans in all state institutions and agencies.
He is a member of the bioethics steering committee of the Division for Mission in North America of the Lutheran Church of America, a health consultant to the Lutheran Church of America, a health consultant to the Vesper Society of San Leandro, and a member of the board of directors at Vesper Memorial Hospital of San Leandro, where he chairs the board's medical care committee.
Rudisill has been university chaplain since 1969.
RESEARCHER SAYS ADJUSTMENT ALSO STRESSFUL FOR WIVES
Alcoholism programs neglect spouses, study claims
Wives of recovering alcoholics face adjustment periods that are nearly as stressful as those for their husbands, but they are the “forgotten patients” in rehabilitation programs, a university study finds.
Charles Underwood, Ph.D., interviewed 58 wives of recovering alcoholics for his doctoral dissertation and found that their problems were far from over after their husbands stopped drinking.
“The wives continued to experience a high level of anxiety,” Underwood reports in his dissertation, titled Wives of Recovering Alcoholics: Their Personal Concerns During Their Husbands' First 18 Months of Sobriety. “Only the focus of their concerns was changed,” he says.
Yet the wives said few of their concerns were recognized or addressed by counselors and other professionals working in alcoholism rehabilitation programs. They said such programs focus almost exclusively on the alcoholic.
More than half of the wives interviewed had been married for 16 years or longer, and most of them had children at home.
“About 60 percent of the husbands had been habitual, daily drinkers,” Underwood reports. “The other 40 percent were episodic alcoholics. Typically, they would abstain during the week and drink only
on weekends. Most had attempted sobriety several times.”
Underwood asked the women to describe their anxieties, what their concerns had been before and after their husbands had stopped drinking.
Ranking their presobriety concerns in descending order, the wives cited the drinking issue, conflict in the marriage, the children’s welfare, their sexual relationship, the husband’s health and their own self-adequacy.
Underwood reports, “All of the wives said they experienced some relief when their husbands stopped drinking, but by no means did they feel their problems were over.”
Ranking their concerns of the early post-sobriety period, the wives cited, again in descending order, conflict in the marriage, their sexual relationship, their own self-adequacy, the children’s welfare, the drinking issue (fear of relapse), and the husband’s health.
Based on the study data, Underwood hypothesizes that the wives of recovering alcoholics go through various stages of adjustment during the post-sobriety period. After an initial feeling of mild relief mixed with continued anxiety, they enter a stage of role adjustment.
“For many women, one of the most difficult adjustments is to relinquish the responsibil-
ities they had assumed when their husbands became neglectful,” Underwood says. “ A woman who took over management of the family finances after her husband no longer paid the bills on time, for example, is likely to balk at handing back that responsibility when her husband is sober.”
Underwood offers some explanations. First, during the early post-sobriety period, the wife tends to worry that her husband will relapse. Or second, she may simply be reluctant to readjust to her spouse’s
system of management, having developed her own way of doing things.
The role adjustments these women go through may be similar to the adjustments that faced wives of servicement returning from World War II, says Maurice Hamovitch, a professor of the School of Social Work and chairman of the committee that reviewed Underwood’s dissertation.
When Hamovitch interviewed spouses of servicemen several years ago, he found
that to cope with the pain of separation many of those women had assumed their husbands would never return.
Similarly, he hypothesizes that the wives of alcoholics many assume that their spouses will never again be secure enough to handle household and family responsibilities. Then, when the husbands try to reassert themselves, the wives must go through a period of psychological adjustment.
(Continued on page 4)
Single mothers said more like^ than men to rely upon others
Letters welcome
The Summer Trojan welcomes letters and commentaries for publication.
Material submitted must include the writer’s name, year in school (or postion held at the university), major, and a telephone number at which the writer may be reached during the day.
All letters and commentaries must be typed and doublespaced.
Submit letters and commentaries to STU 421.
Among single parents coping with the demands of raising children alone, mothers are more likely than fathers to rely on a “support system” of family and friends, a university researcher reports.
“Women who are single parents tend to ask for — and receive — financial and moral support from family members and friends,” says Dr. Helen Mendes, an associate professor of social work and a pioneer in research on single-parent families.
Men who head single-parent families, on the other hand, tend to think they’re supposed to be strong and independent, so they’re more reluctant to ask for help, she says.
“Men who are less caught up in the ‘macho’ image are able to ask for help when it’s needed, but men over 40 are often bound up with the feeling of ‘I’ll do it myself.’ It’s understandable, but it’s sad,” says Mendes, who was a single parent herself for eight years.
Single-parent families are increasing, the recently tabulated figures from the 1980 census show. Today, one American child in five lives with only one parent. Some 12.7 million children live in single-parent homes.
Mendes, who has 17 years’ experience as a private-practice social worker and often counsels single-parent families, recently conducted a study of 45 single parents. Here are some of her findings:
Men and women differ in the way they maintain family ties after a divorce. Women tend to maintain relationships with their in-laws and encour-
age their children to do the same. Men usually allow7 their children to continue relationships with maternal grandparents, but they, themselves, rarely keep close ties with their in-laws.
Single-parent mothers and fathers view the child’s role differently. Mothers tend to placc great value in the child’s emotional support, while fathers tend to see the sharing of household tasks as the child’s primary way of demonstrating support.
Single-parent fathers tend to demand and value independence in their children. Their female counterparts tend to “baby their offspring, perhaps because they feel guilty about the father’s absence and don’t want to demand too much.
Mendes thinks many of these parenting differences are sex-role related. The attitudes and practices of single-parent mothers and fathers will change, she says, as sex-role stereotyping becomes less common and as one-parent families headed by women cease to be the norm.
Curently, 19 percent of all families with children under age 18 are headed by single parents. Few of these families are headed by men, but such families are on the rise.
“Increasing numbers of men are becoming single parents — either by adoption or by gaining custody after a divorce,” Mendes explains. “We’re moving away from sexual stereotypes. Fewer women are demanding custody of their children, while more and more men are fighting for custody.”
(Continued on page 4)